How to End a World: Take Two
by PKRS
Summary: REPOSTED A tale about a boy, his friends, and a game they play together. Only with Total Drama, and better. Homestuck crossover. Different from the earlier one. Rated T because I'm paranoid. I own nothing.
1. A Young Man Stands In His Bedroom

_**Hey everyone!**_

_**I know I posted a story like this earlier, but I deleted it. Why? Put simply, it stank.**_

_**So I guess I'll bold the Pesterlogs and bold-italicize the author's notes for this story only…**_

_**Oh, and for reference, the show never happened.**_

_**Even if you don't know Homestuck, or hate it, please bear with me. I will try to make this interesting for everyone.**_

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

It was an ordinary day in the Anderson household. The sun was beating down relentlessly on the neighborhood… or at least it would have, if it weren't storming. Lightning flashed, tearing open the sky. Cody looked outside, wistfully hoping for better weather.

_Ding-dong._

He glanced up, shocked. Who in their right mind would be outside in this storm? Although, it wouldn't be too unusual if it were his father…

It's happened before.

Slowly, he walked to the door and opened it. A drenched mailman, clearly miserable, handed him a sizable stack of letters. Cody mumbled a "thank you" and closed the door. Placing the stack on a table, he flopped down on the couch and groaned.

Picking up the remote next to him, he flicked through the TV channels. Unfortunately, nothing good was on, and he ended up watching a trashy sitcom on some weird channel. A mere five minutes had passed, and the characters had made so many rude jokes he was already starting to feel uncomfortable. Sighing, he turned the television off. He eyed the stack of mail. Surely a peek couldn't hurt…

Getting up, he began to riffle through the pile. Bill… ad… credit card… a thin package. Seeing his name on it, he eagerly yanked it out of the stack. Taped to the top was an official-looking letter.

_Dear Cody Anderson,_

_Congratulations! You have been selected, along with three others, to participate in a free trial for our newest, cutting-edge technology._

_Enclosed are:_

_\- ONE (1) COPY OF SBURB BETA, SERVER AND CLIENT DISKS_

\- _ONE (1) GAMING FETCH MODUS + TWELVE (12) CAPTCHALOGUE CARDS_

_\- ONE (1) COPY OF PESTERCHUM VERSION 7.1_

_\- INSTRUCTIONS FOR ALL THREE SOFTWARE FORMS_

_Other participants in this trial are Noah Hayden, Gwen Fahlenbock, and Dawn Medrek._

_We hope you enjoy these gifts!_

_Sincerely,_

_Chris McLean_

_CEO of Skaianet_

Cody blinked, confused. What was Skaianet? Who were these people? He shrugged and ripped open the package.

Out fell three disks (in separate envelopes), a light yellow, oddly shaped card, and a packet of instructions.

Two of the envelopes were paper-clipped together and labeled "SBURB BETA". One had a green house logo, and the other was printed with a green spirograph.

The lone envelope had a stylized, pixelated yellow smiley face on it and was labeled "PESTERCHUM V 7.1".

The card had a white gaming controller and the uppercase letters RP embossed on it.

The instructions were rather thick and separated into sections. The first section was labeled "PESTERCHUM V 7.1", the second, "GAMING MODUS", and the final, fattest-looking section was for "SBURB BETA".

Now…

Which section should he read?

* * *

_**NOT A CLIFFHANGER, WHAAAAAAAT?**_

_**So which section should he read? Review and PM!**_

_**(Also, I may not update this story as frequently as some of the others I have written. Sorry!)**_


	2. Cody: Read modus section

Regardless of the decision of the general viewing audience, Cody chooses to ignore the command. It's not like he could hear it anyway.

He began to install the Pesterchum 7.1 disk in his computer. Looking at the screen and realizing that it would take at least half an hour, he decided to read the Pesterchum section of the manual.

_Pesterchum 7.1 not only has a standard "chat" function, but also includes two new features: video chats and group chats!_

_When you set up your Pesterchum account, you will be asked to choose a username. Please pick one that you think reflects your personality! If you are content with the username you have chosen, click "Enter". You cannot change this username after you click Enter._

The manual also had a whole lot of other stuff, but he decided to ignore it. While the program was loading, he thought about what his username would be.

And so when the installation was complete, he entered the username "casanovicCandy".

Pesterchum's main screen had a contacts list, text color change option, and a mood selector. Simple enough!

But the Contacts list, mysteriously, already had three people registered in it. Those three people were usernamed snarkasticCynic, artisticKarma, and mysticalMoonchild. He assumed these were the other people mentioned in the letter.

It also appeared that mysticalMoonchild was inviting him to join a video chat. Expecting the worst, he set his mood to "SMOOTH" and hit "accept".

Another window opened up, split into four sections. In the upper-left corner, Cody could see himself from his computer camera's point of view. In the other corners, he saw three other teens his own age.

One of them, in the upper-right corner, was a pale-faced, bored-looking Goth. Her short hair was dyed black and teal, and she seemed to be taking only a mild interest in the ongoing conversation. The name beneath her image read "artisticKarma".

Cody, being the love-stuck puppy he was, fell in love instantly.

The boy in the lower-left corner was Indian, with a wide, slightly rectangular head. He was wearing a huge headset that suggested he was a gaming veteran. Currently, he was talking angrily about something. It probably had something to do with his username, snarkasticCynic.

And the blonde girl in the lower-right corner had gray eyes and elven-looking ears. The strange array of items behind her seemed to have contributed to her username, mysticMoonchild. She seemed to be content with her surroundings, and apparently the one who had invited Cody to the call.

"…and she types in this crappy username and hits Enter, so I'm stuck with it!" SC ranted. "'Snarkastic' isn't even a word!"

"Oh, my," AK said, rolling her eyes. "How very troubling. I'm sure all of our problems fade away in comparison to what YOU had to go through today."

"Fuck you too."

"Everyone please be quiet!" MM pleaded. "The last member of our party has arrived!" AK and SC took no notice of her, however, and continued arguing/explaining/cussing. She sighed and typed something on her keyboard.

A new window opened up on Cody's screen.

* * *

**mysticalMoonchild [MM] began pestering casanovicCandy [CC] at 5:01 pm PST**

**MM: i apologize for the rude behavior of the others**

**MM: im afraid theyre both rather sarcastic and loud**

**CC: haha, it's all right!**

**CC: my name's cody, by the way.**

**MM: its nice to meet you cody**

**MM: my name is dawn**

**CC: dawn?**

**CC: as in, break of morning kind of dawn?**

**MM: well yes**

**MM: but a name**

**CC: so i guess the egghead's noah and the hottie's gwen?**

**MM: yes**

**MM: shall i ignore that you just called gwen hot?**

**CC: i did?**

**CC: oh shit!**

**MM: haha**

**MM: just messing with you ;)**

**MM: anyway we were talking about how noahs friend izzy made his username for him**

**MM: its kind of boring**

**CC: nah.**

**CC: s'cool i guess.**

**MM: should we go back to the conversation**

**CC: yeah, sure.**

**casanovicCandy ceased pestering mysticalMoonchild at 5:11 pm PST**

* * *

When Dawn and Cody stopped pestering each other, Gwen and Noah had finally stopped yelling.

They were starting at their screens. Cody assumed they were looking at him in particular. He cleared his throat.

"Hi," he said awkwardly. "I'm Cody."

Noah groaned loudly. "Are you kidding me? The mystery guy's THIS skinny short kid?"

"How'd you know I was short? I'm sitting down!"

"I didn't. But thanks for confirming it."

"Fuck."

Having discovered something, Gwen asked, "Why is your username casanovicCandy?"

"Because… uh…" Cody grinned nervously. "I attract girls and love sugar?"

She glared. "I see that look in your eye. Don't think that I'll be 'attracted to you', even if everyone else is. Desperate guys are NOT my type. Besides, unlike you, I'm not single."

"Aw."

"Moving on, did everyone open their modi yet?"

"Yup." Noah held up a book. "Here's mine. Apparently, I need to read sentences from this to retrieve items. Watch." He turned a few pages and read, "The people of Derse usually have little to no need of entertainment such as video games." A small console dropped out of the air and landed in his outstretched hand. The egghead began to play, making it clear that he didn't want to talk anymore.

"Yeah, I have the sketchpad modus," Gwen yawned. "I draw anything I have in my inventory to retrieve it. If I don't have it, I can't do anything. Dawn?"

"I was given the fortune cookie modus, and can access my items by breaking cookies," Dawn replied. "Whoever came up with it clearly had too much time on their hands."

"What do you have, Cody?" Gwen asked, clearly not caring.

"Gaming," he said.

"Oh?" Noah looked up from his console. "Sounds interesting. What does it do?"

"I'm not sure, actually," he admitted. "I opened Pesterchum first."

Noah stared at him for a whole five seconds, then burst out laughing. "That's really sad, Cody. Get off the computer NOW, and figure out how to use your modus."

"Okay," he said sheepishly.

He was about to close his laptop, but was stopped when the cynic added, "And don't open Sburb yet. Dawn the fortune-teller says only evil can come from not playing it together." He wiggled his fingers. "Oogla boogla. Peace out, suckers." His video square blanked out to show a plain olive green background.

"He just logged out," Cody said lamely.

"No shit, Sherlock," Gwen grumbled. "I should go, too." Her screen blanked out as well, this time to a shade of teal.

"Um, Dawn?" Cody was getting desperate.

She smiled sadly. "Sorry, Cody. It's about eleven thirty where I live right now. I should probably go to bed… Besides, shouldn't you be getting off as well?"

"What? No, it's only –" he checked the clock – "Five thirty-eight…"

She appeared perplexed, but her face cleared. "There's only bad weather making it look dark, then. Well, see you!"

"Wait, how'd you know about that?" It was too late, as she had already logged out. Her screen faded to a medium gray. Sighing, he exited the video chat.

He decided it would be a good idea to take a look at this "Gaming Modus". He flipped the instruction manual to the modus section and skimmed it. It was a system that helped him store items, and only let him retrieve them when he did something with them that referenced a video game. Roleplaying games were best, the manual suggested.

Half an hour of experimenting, installing cards, and figuring out software later, he decided he was ready to give it a shot.

Picking up a foam sword, he tried to fit it in his pocket. As soon as it disappeared, he tried to retrieve it again. _**(A/N: Think storing things in the Duat from Kane Chronicles.) **_When it reappeared, he swung it around aimlessly before it could fade again.

Of course, the sword was never in danger of truly vanishing, since it would simply return to the metaphysical plane the modus operated on. Fetch modi sure are confusing!

Having figured out his modus (kind of), he decided to stop screwing around with it. It seemed too abstract a concept to fully comprehend in one hour.

But what's this? Someone was pestering him, and it sure wasn't one of his new chums. He sat down to answer them.

* * *

**carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling casanovicCandy [CC] at 6: 12 pm PST**

**CG: OH FUCK, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?**

**CG: MORE OF THESE HUMANS? GOG, WHAT WERE WE THINKING?**

**CC: sorry, do i know you?**

**CG: FUCK!**

**CG: AS IF DEALING WITH EGDERP AND HIS CREW WEREN'T ENOUGH!**

**CC: who's egderp?**

**CC: is that even a name?**

**CG: OF COURSE IT'S A NAME.**

**CG: IT'S RANDOM DEGRADING BULLSHIT I'M SURE ANY RESPONSIBLE LUSUS WOULD LOVE TO PASS ONTO THEIR CHILD.**

**CG: IT'S NOT A NAME, DUMBASS!**

**CC: oh**

**CC: you aren't very nice…**

**CG: NOT EVERYONE'S NICE. YOU MUST BE SOME KIND OF NAÏVE CHILD TO BELIEVE THAT.**

**CG: OH WAIT, ALL HUMANS ARE. NEVERMIND!**

**CC: "all humans"?**

**CC: does this mean you're not one?**

**CG: NO SHIT I'M NOT.**

**CG: I'M A TROLL.**

**CG: AND EVEN IF I'M LOWBLOOD FILTH, I'M STILL BETTER THAN YOU'LL EVER BE.**

**CC: a troll?**

**CC: isn't that just an internet term for some guy who likes to irritate people?**

**CG: IT IS?**

**CG: IT FITS ANYWAY.**

**CG: WHY DO YOU HAVE FEFERI'S TROLLIAN INITIALS?**

**CC: **_**what **_**initials?**

**CC: wow, haha.**

**CC: trollian. I get it.**

**CC: i guess it's a really bad trillium knockoff.**

**CG: EXCUSE ME?**

**CG: SOUNDS LIKE TRILLIUM IS A REALLY BAD TROLLIAN KNOCKOFF.**

**CC: you know what?**

**CC: why don't you find some of your other friends to spout your nonsense to?**

**CC: i'm going.**

**casanovicCandy ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist at 6:58 pm PST**

* * *

_**If anyone's wondering who this CG guy is, don't bother asking and go read Homestuck. If you don't want to/tried and hated it, don't worry as he will be revealed later! And what's this "being a troll" bullshit all about anyway? THE MYSTERY BUILDS!**_

_**If you ARE a Homestucker, feel free to contact me about the story… THROUGH A PM! I will be happy to share the random irrelevant crap I've come up with for the story, or just talk about HS.**_

_**_**And I know Cody's modus is kind of confusing. Let me **_**_clarify._****_

_****_A modus is, quite simply, a way to store an inventory of objects. However, they usually have some kind of annoying catch to them, like only using items at the top of a stack of them. Cody's annoying catch is that he has to act out a scene that references a video game or else the object retrieved will go back into the weird place that stored items go. The whole appearing/vanishing schmick is just a slightly more realistic way of representing putting in/taking out items, since in the Homestuck story interacting with your modus is pretty much breaking the fourth wall 24/7. Since we have no visuals to show the captchalogue cards in which the items are stored, I'm just using appearing/disappearing. If you're still confused, I can try to explain it better when I'm not so tired..._****_**_  
_**

_**No review question will be asked this time, since I know what the next chapter will be called already. But please review, follow or favorite anyway! All reviews are read, and I will answer user reviews through PM, and the guest reviews through here. If your review has not been replied to, it just means I don't feel a need to elaborate on it. Your review has said all that needs to be said. Something like that…**_

_**Speaking of…**_

_**GamingGirl: Nice to know that you'll stick with me through this! Thanks for taking the time to track it down (alliteration)!**_

_**See ya!**_


	3. --)

That was random. Cody glared at his screen, furious. Who was he wasting his time with, anyway? A notification popped up.

**Add user to TROLLSLUM?**

Confused, he picked up the instruction manual. As soon as he touched the packet, it vanished.

He cursed. This modus was going to become a problem.

As soon as he looked up on his desktop computer (which was, thankfully, too large to captchalogue) a reasonable game reference that involved a packet of paper, he paged through the pamphlet until he found out what a trollslum was.

Apparently, it was where you could add irritating people to know when they were online so he could be offline. Shrugging, he added carcinoGeneticist to the trollslum, and blocked him for good measure.

Maybe it was time to make his Pesterchum mobile.

Picking up his phone (and cussing when it was sent into a metaphysical plane, courtesy of his modus), he grabbed a connector wire and began importing Pesterchum into it.

Or at least he did, right after he found some phone game-y gimmick. This system sure was annoying.

While he was at it, he wondered what happened to the modus card. He had expected it to disappear forever, but it immediately reappeared in his hand when he thought about it.

Flipping the card over, he examined the back. Finding a button called Strife Specibus Armata, he pressed it. It was a setting for what you could use as a weapon. The specibus could never be changed, the card warned. _Think long and hard before you pick one._

It didn't take him very long before he picked up his electronic keyboard and set his specibus to "instrumentkind".

He figured he'd end up wasting a ton of money on replacements, though.

The keyboard was sucked into the card, which disappeared into the plane of metaphysicality once again.

This was hopelessly stupid.

"Cody?"

He cringed. It was time for dinner. Sighing, he began the trek downstairs. He hadn't the heart to tell his mom that he wasn't hungry, nor did he want to say that he wanted to stay upstairs.

It was time for a strife.

* * *

Cody walked into the kitchen, where his mother was taking a casserole out of the oven. His mother glanced up.

"Hi, honey!" she said merrily. "It's dinner time!"

"No."

"But Cody, dear, you know how important having dinner as a family is!"

In response, he equipped his keyboard and brandished it.

"Oh, sweetie."

**STRIFE!**

"Mom, I'm going to skip dinner today!" Cody shouted.

"No, you're not! Your father's actually coming home for dinner, and you need to be there!" She pulled a spoon from a cabinet.

**WHAT WILL CODY DO?**

**==) AGRESS**

Cody made a big show of running up to his mom and trying to hit her with the keyboard. His mom auto-parried with the spoon. She had gotten used to this nonsense a long time ago.

**ATTACK BLOCKED!**

**==) ABJURE**

Cody's mom picked up the casserole and shoved it at her son.

"You need to eat!" she yelled.

"NO!" he yelled back, scooting away.

"YOUNG MAN, YOU ARE NOT SKIPPING DINNER! I'll tie you to the chair and spoon-feed you if I have to!"

"No! FUCK! Can't I skip ONE meal in my life?"

"CODY! Don't swear in front of your mother!"

"Make me!"

"Fine. I'm calling Sierra."

"HOLY SHIT, MOM. NO. STOP."

"What was it? 3…4…9…"

**==) ABSCOND!**

Cody got away safely! Sadly, he gained no experience points.

He thundered back up the stairs to his room and slammed the door. Quickly, he locked all seventeen locks, three numerical keypads, and shoved his bookshelf against the door.

He also locked the window, taped off most of the air vents, and performed a scan for micro cameras and drones. And just to be safe, he set the personal security measures for if anyone besides him came within a fifty-foot radius of his room.

It never hurt to be too careful, especially when Sierra was involved.

Sierra. She was widely known as a stalker, and when she set her sights on someone, there was no telling what she would do. When she met Cody, she fell head-over-heels in love. Now, she would try to have them end up married at any cost.

It wasn't fun.

In the meantime, he armed himself with his keyboard and read the manual for SBURB BETA.

It was full of confusing terminology and facts, but from what he could comprehend, he needed to get an item from something and destroy it before a disaster happened. He had no clue. It also mentioned who would be a server player, or the person manipulating the game elements, and the client player, who would be the one playing the game.

His server player would be Gwen, and his client was to be Dawn.

He considered starting up the game right then, then thought better of it. He should probably wait until morning to talk to the rest of the players. Dawn was most likely asleep, anyway.

His phone started buzzing. He flipped it open.

* * *

**artisticKarma [AK] began pestering casanovicCandy [CC] at 7:03 pm PST.**

**AK: I'm bored.**

**AK: Wanna play Sburb?**

**CC: what?!**

**CC: no!**

**CC: dawn says we shouldn't do it unless we're all together.**

**AK: Read the manual, stupid.**

**AK: If we're doing this in a cycle, she's in the last part of it.**

**AK: We can wake her up later for her part.**

**CC: what does noah think?**

**AK: He's okay with it.**

**AK: Come on! We'll be fine.**

**CC: all right then.**

**CC: what do i do?**

**AK: Install the client disk.**

**AK: That's the one with the green swirly thing.**

**CC: spirograph.**

**AK: Whatever.**

**AK: Just do it.**

* * *

**_I'm going to go to a weekend camp from Friday after school to Sunday. I won't be able to post during that time._**

**_On the bright side, I figure I'm going to be able to write at least another chapter… hopefully longer than 1,000 words!_**

**_Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and faves so far. I really appreciate it. :)_**

**_See ya!_**


	4. Cody: Go to mspaintadventures

_**Bluh bluh life bluh bluh excuses bluh bluh math homework.**_

* * *

Instead of opening the client disk, Cody decided to waste time looking at webcomics. He opened Abraxas, his web browser, and typed in mspaintadventures . com. _**(A/N: Link separated for convenience.)**_

It was a pretty nifty site he had found while browsing the Internet one day, and had an archive of webcomics to read. Well, only like four webcomics, but whatever.

Currently, the author was doing a story called "The Midnight Crew". It's pretty cool.

**AK: CODY!  
AK: What are you doing?!  
CC: sorry, technical difficulties.**

YEAH RIGHT!

He inserted the client disk into his computer anyway. A new terminal-looking screen opened up. White text ran across the screen, reading:

_A SBURB host is trying to connect with you._

_Client has established connection with host._

_Press [ENTER] when ready._

He did so. The green spirograph came up on his screen, changing shapes as the game loaded. An array of random phrases rapidly flashed below the loading bar.

**CC: what does "judging chalk adaptors" mean?  
AK: The world may never know!**

The game finished loading. A random green cursor in the shape of a house logo appeared in front of Cody.

**CC: is that you?  
AK: Take a guess.  
CC: whoa, so this game lets you manipulate reality?  
CC: and mess with people's stuff?  
AK: It seems so.  
AK: You know how I'm going to use this ability?  
CC: oh god.**

The game cursor placed down a huge contraption in a convenient corner. He stared at it uncomprehendingly.

**CC: so what does this do?**  
**AK: I'm not sure.**  
**AK: Does it look like I can operate this machine, with this cursor of mine?**  
**AK: It's called the cruxtruder, if it helps.**

Cody inspected the cruxtruder. It appeared to be a large, squat thing with a tube at the top. There was also a wheel, which he tried turning. Something seemed to be pushing against the tube's top!

**AK: I have no idea if this helps, but the manual said to try hit the top of the lid.  
AK: It also has a link to a whole bunch of GameFAQs guides.**  
**AK: Most of them are useless. The only one that seems to be of any use is this one: _[pretend there's a link]  
_CC: hold on.**  
**CC: i'm putting you on speakerphone.**

He opened up a video chat with Gwen. Her hair was an absolute mess, and dark circles were starting to form under her eyes.

"Whoa, what happened?" Cody asked.

She blinked and yawned. "I've been up for a while. Just studying for a test. Don't worry about it." Taking a long swig from the mug beside her, she added, "It's really nothing. So, you'll need to hit the top of this thing with something heavy."

"Will that work?" He pointed to a cinderblock.

"Yeah, I think."

Sighing, Cody began the trek downstairs. Spotting his mom in the kitchen, he slipped out the back door and grabbed - oh shit not the modus again. He would be tempted to scream, had he not wanted to alert his mother to his presence.

"Need help?" The cursor picked up another cinderblock.

"Thanks."

He walked back to his room. The cursor launched the cinderblock at the cruxtruder's lid. The lid popped off, and the device started shaking.

* * *

When the cruxtruder stopped spazzing out, a strange blue ball of energy floated out of the open tube.

Wait, where were his parents? They probably would have felt the weird giant contraption's vibrating through the ceiling. He glanced outside, where he saw his dad's car driving away from their house. He decided they just left for dinner.

"So what does this thing do?" he inquired, jabbing a finger towards the floating orb.

"I have no idea. I think I need to stick something in it, though. This one walkthrough is quite verbose. Noah's probably the only one who can read it."

The house-shaped cursor disappeared from the room. It came back a few seconds later, bearing a large clay pigeon. For some reason, Cody's dad had a whole bunch of these around the household. The cursor dropped the bird into the ball.

With a flash of blue light, the bobbing orb transformed into a floating, still-gray pigeon. It started flapping its wings frantically, squawking like a... fake bird that just got tossed into a ball of blue stuff, I guess.

"Okay, I think I know what this is," Gwen said, interrupting Cody's silent contemplations of the frantic avian. "It's the Kernelsprite. It's supposed to guide you on a quest."

"A quest?"

"Yeah! It says here something about a 'faithful mage', an 'emotion-led knight', a 'rational seer', and a 'balanced rogue', going on a journey of epic proportions. It will involve, friendship, comradery, teamwork, and -" she paused for dramatic effect - "FROGS."

"Frogs? Seriously?"

"I know, right? Personally, I think this is all bullshit and has nothing whatsoever to do with what we're doing."

"Agreed."

The cursor started waving in front of Cody.

"Follow the cursor, please."

He did so all the way to the living room. There awaited two more devices.

One was huge, and had a weird platform with a triangle fractal pattern on it. The other had a collection of chisels, and a clamp.

"So what do these do?" Cody asked.

"Uh, wait. Hold on." A captchalogue card floated down. Upon examining it, he noticed that it had holes punched into it, rendering the item within unusable.

"I guess I'll put this into the slot on this thing?" He tried sticking it into the chisel machine. A pattern of chisels extended from the device.

"Now I need something to put in the clamp..." he muttered.

"Try using the cruxtruder," Gwen suggested. Cody sighed, walking back to his room. He turned the wheel on the cruxtruder, but froze.

"What's that counting down to?" he asked, pointing to a timer that read 4:13. As the seconds passed, the displayed numbers started decreasing.

"Nothing good." She shuddered.

He finished turning the wheel and picked up the blue cylinder that came out. He walked back to the chisely thing - "TOTEM LATHE!" Gwen yelled - and stuck the cylinder into its clamp. The chisels pared the cylinder into an odd shape.

"So, what's this thing?" he questioned, tossing it and catching it.

"The uncarved one is a cruxite dowel, and the carved one is a cruxite totem. It's safe to assume anything that color is made of cruxite."

"Okay, so what do I do with it."

"You could try putting it on that small platform on the alchemiter."

"The what?"

"The flat thing with a whole bunch of triangles on it."

He did so. Some kind of automated procedures began, with a robotic arm scanning the contours of the totem. With a burst of sparks, a blue lighter appeared.

"Why must everything be this exact shade of blue?" he sobbed.

"Cody! Get yourself together! Do you see that, outside your window?"

A glint appeared in the sky, far to the north. He dragged a telescope out of the closet and looked through it. A flaming meteor was approaching fast! And it seemed to be headed towards his house.

This was bad.

"Okay, before your house gets demolished, you need to light the..." she trailed off. "Is that Duncan's lighter?!"

"Who's Duncan?"

"A guy I know. He's a jerk."

"Would he pick on me if I knew him?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he would."

Cody tried to flick the lighter, but it wouldn't spark! While he was trying to light it, he wasted a precious minute.

Thirty seconds before impact.

"Why am I doing this?!" he asked, pressing the trigger thing over and over.

"It's the only thing that'll keep your house safe!" Gwen said. "You need to believe it'll work!"

Fifteen seconds.

Cody closed his eyes and hoped for the best. He hoped for the safety of everyone he knew.

_Please work, please work, please work..._

The lighter sparked.

The meteor hit.

* * *

_**WHAT?! CODY'S DEAD?!**_

_**Nah, he's not. He lit the lighter. He's safe.**_

_**I am SO sorry for leaving you guys for 3 weeks! I don't even -**_

_**Well, stay tuned for the next update. Hopefully it'll be longer and you'll have less of a wait.**_

_**My gog, I feel like Hussie... ;-;**_


	5. Cody: Explore surroundings

_**HEY LOOK, PONY UPDATED SOONER!**_

* * *

The house was silent.

Not a single breeze rustled its shutters, nor did a soul move. All was quiet... eerily quiet.

But was it destroyed? No. No, it was not destroyed. Not yet anyway.

So where was our main hero, Cody...?

* * *

A young man is crouching in his bedroom. He had expected more rumbling, or say... the house exploding because of impact with a meteor.

He is safe, though. For now.

His phone buzzed, and he retrieved it from his eternally frustrating modus.

"What happened?" Gwen asked. "Are you dead?"

"I don't think so..." Cody thought for a moment. "I'm not dreaming, and I still have Internet and electricity. Also, my phone doesn't seem to be running out of battery... At all."

"So where are you?"

"Good question." He looked outside. The place he had been sent to was a huge expanse of a flat, white desert. The sand was peculiarly shaped, and it reflected the endless stars above like it was made of... sugar?

"Can you check my coordinates?" he asked. "That's a thing, right?"

"Yeah, hold on." She tapped at her keyboard. "It doesn't say anything besides Land of Stars and Sugar."

"Well, it's called LOSAS now... Wait did you just say sugar?"

"Yes, I just said sugar... May I inquire as to why you asked?"

Her addressee was long gone, having dropped his phone in excitement.

Cody ran outside, laughing uncontrollably. This place had sugar! THE SAND WAS PROBABLY SUGAR! Oh, the fun that awaited him! He could gorge himself on delicious, sweet candy all day without anyone bothering him.

He spotted a bunch of yellow salamanders roaming the land. They were 4 feet tall and blowing bubbles, which struck him as odd, but he didn't really care.

Calling over to one, he yelled, "HEY! Is the sand sugar?"

The salamander blinked at him and glubbed, "Um... You probably don't want to eat it... Although it IS sugar."

Cody was no longer paying attention, as he had shoved a fistful of the sand into his mouth. He then spat it all out.

This stuff tasted like gasoline! No wonder the salamander had told him not to eat it.

The amphibian sighed. "The planet has been poisoned for as long as anyone can remember. Though all this delicious sweetness surrounds us, we cannot eat it. Also, it tastes terrible." He looked really dejected. "It's a shame. Sugar probably tastes so much better than eating bugs all the time..."

The poor guy looked so miserable, Cody was compelled to help. He stuck a hand in his pocket. "Well, where I came from we had lots of sugar! Luckily, I have some here..." Pulling out a hard candy, he offered it to the salamander.

His eyes sparkled. "OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH THANK YOUUUUUUUU!" The salamander ran off to his friends, blowing bubbles eagerly. "The Mage gave me sugar!" Cody smiled.

He returned to his house, and picked up his phone again. Gwen was waiting angrily.

"Could you maybe remember the communication device next time?" she demanded.

"Whoops, sorry." He smiled sheepishly. "You saw the salamander, right?"

"Of course I did. This stupid camera won't let me look somewhere more productive, like around this "planet" the salamander spoke of. Were you even paying attention to what the guy said?"

"No, why?"

"When he was running back to his friends, he said, "The Mage gave me sugar". Go back and ask him what he meant."

"Alright, fine." He headed back outside and towards the amphibian who he had conversed with earlier.

"Could you elaborate on what you meant by "mage"?" he asked.

"Oh! The elders said that once, when the planet was in great danger, the Mage of Hope would arrive and teach us all how to save the land from a force of destruction!" The salamander giggled, stuffing the candy in his mouth.

"Okay... But how does this relate to me?"

"They said that the hero would show the people of the Land of Sugar and Stars what concentrated purity was like!" He went back to devouring his candy.

Cody walked away, confused. Concentrated purity? Maybe he should ask Noah...

* * *

Somewhere, not very far away, a girl sits in a vent. Her quarry, escaped.

Even with all the security measures, it would be very hard for Codykins to keep THIS pest out. She grinned devilishly.

Hey, what's that?

* * *

Cody opened a regular chat with Noah, completely forgetting that it was probably really late back on Earth.

**CC: hey noah?  
****CC: do you know what concentrated purity tastes like?  
****CC: i'm guessing it's sugar, cause the folks here have never tasted sugar that isn't poison.  
****CC: that's kind of sad if you ask me. sugar is delicious.  
****CC: oh wait, it's really late at night for you...  
****CC: kay bye!**

* * *

The concealed stalker looked outside of her vent. A floating blue pigeon floated by her line of sight. She really wanted to poke it and see what would happen. Reaching out through the vent, she strained towards it. Just a little closer...

* * *

A huge flash of blue light came from Cody's house.

"What was that?" he asked rhetorically, and ran over to investigate. All this scurrying back and forth was exhausting!

Unbeknownst to him, Gwen reconnected the video chat about then.

When he got there, a dazed blue part-bird girl sprite floated in midair. She brightened when she saw him.

"Hi Codykins!" Sierra yelled.

"Oh hell no," he said in horror. "Does this mean I have to call you Sierrasprite now?"

"Yup!" His stalker beamed ecstatically.

"Oh my god. What kind of powers do you have now?"

"I know all sorts of things about this game you're in. It isn't even a game! You got sucked into an alternate dimension called the Medium!"

"I... what?"

"The Medium! It's this pocket of space inside the Incisisphere, which is surrounded by the Furthest Ring. And the Medium houses this planet and Skaia!"

"...Skaia?"

"Here, come on!" Sierrasprte forcibly dragged him outside and pointed up. "That big blue thingy with all those clouds is Skaia! It changes depending on what you put in the Kernelsprite!"

"Can you slow down?"

"No way!"

"Can you please just show me a quicker and easier way to understand it all then?"

"Hmm..." A holographic model of a chessboard appeared over her palm. "Okay, cool. So this is what it was like before you threw that clay pigeon in." A set of chess pieces, black and white, appeared on the board. "It's a battle of good versus evil, by the way."

"And they're all chess people?"

His friendly guide tilted her head. "Yeah, actually they are!"

"Continue."

"And this is what the troops were AFTER you threw the bird in!" The pieces changed to have wings and feathery crests.

"So why aren't they like you then?"

"Good question! I actually don't know."

"So, is this touching reunion over yet?" Gwen interrupted.

"Codykins, is this your GIRLFRIEND?!" Sierrasprite hissed. "You can't have him! ONLY I CAN!"

"I guess it's over then," Gwen shrugged. "And it's okay, I'm not into him."

"...could I go to sleep now?" Cody asked. "If I were back on Earth, it would be like 10 by now and I'm tired."

"I thought you usually slept a lot later, Codykins," Sierrasprite noted.

He decided not to ask about how she knew that. "But as you can see, I've had a really long day today and I'd like to go to bed now. Good night."

He stumbled into his house, up the stairs, and into his room. With a THUD, he fell into bed and slept.

* * *

_**For a more comprehensible version of the Medium spiel Sierrasprite was saying, go to mspaintadventures dot com /?s=6&amp;p=002320 . Nannasprite can probably explain it better...**_

_**And we have Sierrasprite. Prepare for loads of mischief.**_

_**Shay: Glad to see you're enjoying the story! :D**_

_**GamingGirl: Well... I guess this is earlier than it was last time?**_


	6. You are now

Gwen Fahlenbock.

Gwen stared at her screen. She can't believe this strange world Cody just catapulted them all into. Well, really, it's more like whoever Chris McLean of Skaianet's fault.

Skaianet.

Unlike Cody, she was somewhat able to follow Sierrasprite's explanation of the Medium and Incisisphere, though only to a certain degree. However, someone like Noah could probably make more sense of it.

But she was able to catch that the blue world-planet in Cody's sky was called "Skaia". Somehow, she felt like this and the corporation were connected.

Though to be honest, this whole mess was giving her quite a headache and she'd prefer not to think about it too hard. She took a drink from the coffee mug besides her. This mug had served her through thick and thin, always there when she needed a swig of caffeinated goodness.

Oh hey, Noah was pestering her. Retrieving her sketchbook modus, she quickly doodled her phone.

**SC: Gwen.  
****SC: Are you there?  
****SC: I have the strangest feeling Cody did something utterly ridiculous.  
****AK: Well, yeah.  
****AK: He decided to play SBURB with me.  
****SC: Uh, hello?  
****SC: Did you even LISTEN to what Dawn said about the game?  
****AK: I thought you had dismissed the statement with your sarcastic speeches.  
****AK: Sorry, snarkastic. Gotta be technically accurate.  
****AK: Anyway, do you want to play this game here?  
****SC: I'd prefer not to.  
****SC: Have you seen the meteors?  
****AK: Wait - meteors?!**

Gwen rushed to the window and looked outside. Initially, she didn't see much - only the Nevada night outside. She squinted. A flash of light streaked across the sky, followed by another and another. She smiled. A meteor shower.

Or was it? Some of those meteors were getting close to the Earth, impacting it on some places. They seemed pretty small, but were getting bigger.

**AK: Okay, point taken.  
****AK: By the way, did you try to read that walkthrough in the manual?  
****SC: Yeah, it was pretty interesting.  
****SC: This tentacleTherapist person is pretty smart.  
****AK: Can you help me understand?  
****SC: Maybe later. I'm going back to sleep.**

The goth groaned and stowed away her phone. Moving her gaze to her laptop, she wondered if she should ask Sierrasprite about Skaia and the Incisisphere.

Opening a video chat with Cody, she listened to the tone ringing. Eventually, Sierrasprite picked up.

"Oh, it's you," she said distrustingly. "Stay away from my Codykins."

"I won't," Gwen replied. "He's interested in me, but he doesn't have a chance."

The sprite visibly relaxed. "All right then. So! What'd you want to talk about?"

"You know how you explained the game a little? Do you think you could elaborate?"

"Yeah!" Sierrasprite grinned. "I know all this stuff now that I'm a sprite. It's kind of confusing."

"So what about the Incisisphere?"

"Well... It's like a different universe from Earth - not in the game, sort of like an alternate dimension."

"This isn't inside SBURB itself?"

"Nope! The game was just a gateway."

"Interesting." Gwen took a few notes, so as to show Noah later. "Continue."

"There are a few planets. One, Skaia is the blobby blue thing in the middle. Prospit is a golden planet that orbits it. Surrounding Skaia, a little further out, are the planets. Right now there's only Cody's, because he's the only one who's entered."

"Then everyone gets their own planet?"

"Yeah!" Sierrasprite beamed. "Cool, right? And then surrounded by that is a bunch of meteors, and outside of that is a purple planet called Derse."

"What's beyond that?"

"I..." Her smile faltered. "I'm not really sure. It seems foreboding and dark, like I shouldn't be thinking too hard about it or else my head hurts."

"Sierrasprite, if any of my questions actually hurt to answer for any reason, you don't have to answer for me," Gwen said.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. Well, Skaia changes depending on who enters the Medium. Before the game starts, it's just the black and white kings circling each other on a 3x3 chessboard, in a stalemate."

"Wait. SBURB is a giant game of chess?"

"Pretty much. But when the first player enters, it turns into a 12x12 chessboard with the other chess pieces and stuff. After that... I'm not sure. There's also a battle going on between the forces of Prospit and Derse. It's like good and evil, and evil must always win."

"A quest of futility, then?"

"No. I'm not sure why though."

"Thanks, Sierrasprite."

"No problem!"

Gwen ended the video chat. She decided to save the notes she took on her computer, so that she could send them to Noah in the morning.

She prepared to log off Pesterchum, but someone started to bother her.

**arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling artisticKarma [AK]**

**AG: My gog, do you losers even know what you're doing?  
****AK: Who are you?  
****AG: Me?  
****AG: 8etter than you in every way, o8viously. :::;)  
****AK: Let's see. You have an 8 fetish.  
****AG: Do not!  
****AK: Yes you do. Look at all those b's you replaced.  
****AK: Don't know about your smiley, though.  
****AK: If that's even a smiley.  
****AG: Of COURSE it is. It's the 8est smiley you'll ever see.  
****AK: Seriously, who are you?  
****AG: Here's another question: Who are YOU?  
****AK: I don't know. You're the one who contacted me in the first place.  
****AK: How do you even have another Pesterchum?  
****AK: The letter from Skaianet said we were the only ones to get it.  
****AG: Pesterchum? Is that the weird yellow chat software John uses is called? That's a lame name.  
****AK: So Chris lied and we're not the only ones to have this stuff.  
****AG: Well, duuuuuuuuh.  
****AG: How else are you supposed to-  
****AG: Nevermind. I forgot it only takes one session to do everything in.  
****AG: You're the only ones to get it, as far as I know.  
****AG: And I know a lot.  
****AK: So what about this "John" guy?  
****AG: Just someone I know.  
****AG: 8ut I don't use Pesterchum. I use Trollian.  
****AK: How does that even work?  
****AG: You can 8other people at different points on their timeline. It's cool.  
****AK: No, I mean how would two different software forms connect with each other?  
****AK: And really, who ARE you?  
AG: Well, I'm...  
****AG: Whoops, I've said too much!**

**arachnidsGrip ceased trolling artisticKarma**

That was somewhat confusing, and it raises a lot of questions.

Questions she may not have time for, she observed as, despite the copious amounts of coffee she ingested, her vision faded to black and she promptly fell asleep.

* * *

**_Hehe, writing at 11 pm is creatively stimulating._**

**_GamingGirl: No, I just needed to write and cranked out a chapter. You didn't rush me. :)_**


	7. Gwen: Be the other guy

**_Bluh bluh math. I hate math homework. Also there was stuff going on in my life, so there's that._**

* * *

(You decide to be the other guy since Gwen's asleep and being boring.)

Cody woke up, groggy, and blinked. It sure seemed awfully dark and quiet for a California morning. Then the events of the day before came back to him, and he sighed. He had hoped the previous day was only a dream, and that he was back at home. Unfortunately, it wasn't. He was stuck here in a weird place with all this sugar (that he can't eat) with his rabid stalker and only a collection of various Internet friends for help.

Cody rubbed his eyes, still half-asleep. He recalled one of the strange dreams he had in the few hours he had slept. And what a dream that was! All he could remember was a collection of puffy, white clouds and a golden landscape.

Oh look, Dawn was awake. He turned on a video chat.

"Hello, Cody." Dawn said, sounding annoyed. She looked like she had just woken up as well, dressed in pale pink pajamas.

"Hi, Dawn."

"Tell me this." She glared at him a little. "Did you go and play Sburb? Even after I warned you not to, and that there would be dire consequences if you did at the wrong time?"

Cody frowned. "I remember Noah saying that you said that, but nothing about the dire consequences. Why?"

"But did you play it?"

"Um... Maybe?"

Dawn huffed. "Do you realize what you've done?"

"My house was blown up by a meteor and transported to this weird place. It has all this sugar in it but I can't eat any of it."

"Why the hell are you being so dense? You're only concerned about what you did to your own self!" she snapped irritably.

"Geez, I'm sorry!" Cody replied, equally irked. "What could just one person playing a game do to the world anyway?"

Dawn flipped her computer so that the camera faced the window. "This happened," she growled.

He squinted, trying to make out the details of the scenery. Dawn's house seemed to be situated above the treetops of a forest, and seemed quite peaceful and tranquil.

At least until he saw the meteors.

Tens upon hundreds of them, flaming and streaking towards the ground. The giant rocks began to collide with some of the trees, setting them ablaze.

"This is why you should have waited," Dawn said, a little less angrily. "You've started the end of the world as we know it."

"But... How could one game do all this?" Cody asked, astounded and horrified.

"I don't know," Dawn said simply. "The point is, it's really bad, and you should have waited."

"But what would that have done? It was going to happen anyway."

"I suppose. In any case, what was it you wished to speak with me about?"

"Do you know anything about Sburb? Besides the fact that it ends the world, anyway."

"I know that we were destined to play it. We were supposed to use it to end the world."

"But why? Why us?"

"All things must come to an end, mustn't they?"

They talked about other, more inconsequential things afterwards. Cody learned that Dawn lives on her own and loves nature, and Dawn found out about Cody's strife-y evening. After about an hour, Noah started pestering Dawn, so she had to leave. Promising that he wouldn't ignore her advice again, Cody logged off as well with a sigh.

Sierrasprite floated over. "What's wrong, Codykins?"

"I just caused the end of the world, Sierrasprite."

"Oh." She tried to think of an adequate response and came up with: "That sucks."

"Yeah. It kinda does."

"Well, is it okay if I go investigate that little cluster of weird bumps in the distance?"

"Sure. Why do you even need to ask me, though?"

"Because, as your sprite, I need to always be available to help you!"

"...doesn't that mean you're just going to use this opportunity to stalk me even more?"

"Yup!" She beamed. "But I need to ask permission before I can leave you, even if it's only temporary."

"Okay, go. Have fun."

Sierrasprite floated off, seemingly oblivious to Cody's internal non-problems. Non-problems because they weren't actually that big.

Wait. What was that loud smashing noise?

Cody ran back inside. Tiny puddles of what looked like tea traced watery fingers across the hallways, and he wondered how they got there. It was a desert planet, after all!

When he arrived at his room, he groaned. Someone or something had ransacked his belongings, stealing almost anything that wasn't secured or too big to carry.

At least he never cared much about oral hygiene.

In any case, it seemed like there were even more traces of liquid in the room, in the approximate area the stolen items were. Fascinating.

Turning to go back outside, he was confronted by a weird-looking thing. Vaguely humanoid and literally pitch black, the creature had a pair of brownish clay wings extruding from its back. Whatever it was, it didn't look friendly. A text box floating above its head - really! - stated that it was a Steeple Imp.

"Uh... Hi?" Cody smiled, trying to avoid violence.

The imp responded by lunging for his face.

**STRIFE!**

Cody dodged (just barely), but the imp's claws left a good-sized, nasty gash on his arm. A bar appeared above his head, labeled "HEALTH VIAL", and the inside bar jutted out of the surrounding gel a little. That was an odd way of keeping a health gauge, but whatever.

**-› ABUSE**

Ignoring the pain in his arm, Cody pulled out his keyboard and brandished it. The imp looked a little scared, but soon recovered. It tried to attack him, but was (again) evaded.

**-› AGGRESS**

Cody ran up to the imp and tried to smack it upside the head with his keyboard. The impact, for some reason, didn't break the board. However, the imp stumbled back, dazed, and lost some of its health.

**(This cycle repeats a while.)**

Eventually, both exhausted, Cody and the imp lay down and rested for a little while. This "strifing" business sure was hard work!

Cody tried to pull a foam sword from his inventory, and just kind of threw it on the ground. "Truce?" he panted, and the imp nodded.

They tried to reach out for a handshake, but Cody accidentally mashed a few keys on his instrument. It emitted a loud, discordant squeal and cut off abruptly.

Now, while this occurrence would be completely harmless to a human, apparently imps have really sensitive eardrums. Or maybe they just don't like loud sounds. In any case, the imp screeched and exploded, leaving behind a pile of giant Fruit Gushers.

**LEVEL UP!**

Cody leveled up a few rungs on his echeladder, earning the title "Pianokind Abuser". As a reward, he obtained 950 Boondollars for his Ceramic Porkhollow and a very fine-looking hat, complete with feather adornment. One of the level-up bonuses was increased "gel viscosity", like defense, and "mangrit", which allowed him to pick up and use heavier items.

Obviously he was going to squander it using the most inefficient way possible - sylladex shenanigans.

But first, he should really find Sierrasprite and ask her if she knew how to heal giant cuts. This gash was spurting out kind of a lot of blood.

* * *

_Did you see them? What did you think?_

**Well, they're just as stupid as the others if you ask me. Those nookwhiffing pieces of mothergrub excretion don't understand that we are simply better than them in every way!**

_Could you shut your obnoxious crabby piehole? There has to be a reason why the Seer found them, you know. This has to be important._

**Since when do you talk to her? I thought you two hated each other and she-**

_The OTHER Seer._

**Oh. Why didn't you just say so?**

_Becaaaaaaaause. I have to be cryptically confusing now that I'm -_

_[transmission interrupted]_

* * *

**_I'm so sorry this took so long to get out! Those mysterious people conversing near the end shall remain mysterious people, unless you can pick up on some of the clues they drop in their conversation! Which is to say they're Homestuck characters, not TD. If you know who they are, you get a cookie._**

**_GamingGirl: Yes, yes it is! I should probably just say it now: I stole almost all the characters' last names from their voice actors, except for Cody. His was stated in canon._**


	8. Cody: Seek your sprite

Finding no easier way of communication, Cody leaned out the window and yelled, "SIERRASPRITE!"

His feathered stalker pretty much teleported there in an instant. Our young hero groaned, realizing that now Sierra could stalk him better than ever.

As usual, she was being overprotective. "What's wrong, Codykins?" she cooed... and saw the gash on his arm. "What the - Who hurt you?! I'm going to KILL whoever did that!" Her spectral wings flapped in agitation.

"Nah, it's all right. I dispatched the imp who did it with my keyboard," he boasted. "It doesn't even hurt that much! I'll be fine." He proceeded to almost black out from blood loss, falling over. "I'll... be... just all right..." Then he really did black out from blood loss. The last thing he could remember was Sierrasprite freaking out, arms flailing wildly, and thinking how funny that looked.

* * *

He woke up in bed, his arm neatly bandaged and tied up. It seemed to have stopped bleeding, which was probably good. Sierrasprite was by the bed's side, and handed him some juice and cookies.

"Why are you giving me juice and cookies, and why is it not burnt to a crisp?"

"Because you need sugars to regenerate blood, and because I stole it from the fridge and the cookie jar."

"Shame on you for doing that." Taking a bite, he added, "How do you know that, anyway? Some kinda sprite power?"

"It's not even sprite knowledge. It's common sense."

"Okay then. I'm just going to enjoy my juice and cookies while lying in bed."

"You might want to collect that grist in the corner, though," Sierrasprite noted, pointing at one side of the bedroom. There lay a few of the giant Fruit Gushers left from when Cody slew the imp.

"That's what Grist looks like?" Cody asked, incredulous. "...can I eat it?"

"No! It's a game abstraction, it's physically impossible to eat it."

"Seriously? That's the last thing I need, more sugar I can't eat."

"Why are you complaining? You're holding a glass of juice and a cookie. That is sugar, right there."

"I meant candy!"

"Hee hee." Sierrasprite floated through the wall, into places unknown. (Probably the other room.) Cody sighed, got up, and picked up 20 pieces of Build Grist, 11 shreds of Tea Grinds, and 3 shards of Porcelain. **_(A/N: Get it? Steeple imps, like steepling tea. Porcelain because cups are made out of it, also because clay pigeon wings.)_**

This grist doesn't seem like it can be used for much, anyway. Maybe Gwen could use it for like expanding the house or whatever Sburb does. What does it do anyway?

**casanovicCandy [CC] began pestering artisticKarma [AK]**

**CC: gwen, what does sburb do anyway?**  
**AK: Cody, I'm kind of having a few problems! Bother me later!**  
**artisticKarma ceased pestering casanovicCandy**  
**CC: nevermind then.**

Well, now he could go and maybe like... Talk to salamanders? He shrugged and decided to do that.

* * *

Gwen really was in a bit of a predicament.

But to make sense of it, let's backtrack a little.

Waking up in her darkened room without any knowledge of having fallen asleep, the goth blinked and rubbed her eyes. Confused as to why she had slept, even after drinking a crap ton of coffee, she shook it off and looked around. Ordinary morning, meteors raining down because of Sburb... Yup. Ordinary.

**mysticalMoonchild [MM] began pestering artisticKarma [AK]**  
**MM: gwen**  
**MM: are you there**  
**AK: Sorry, I fell asleep earlier. What's up?**  
**MM: you need to play sburb**  
**MM: right now**  
**MM: connect to noah and do what cody did when you connected to him**  
**AK: Wait, why?**  
**MM: the world is being destroyed**  
**MM: and somehow this game is going to help us live**  
**AK: Will I be able to bring my friends and family? I mean, Cody has Sierra... Sprite.**  
**AK: Cause they mean a lot to me.**  
**MM: im afraid not**  
**AK: What? Why?**  
**MM: i sense that if you were to bring them into the game they would die**  
**MM: they would be non-players**  
**AK: But... But I really don't know if I could make it without them. :(**  
**MM: thats understandable**  
**MM: but think of it this way**  
**MM: its let them die or let them die**  
**AK: ...that's a really harsh way of putting it.**  
**MM: unfortunately life is harsh**  
**MM: and sburb is a game of life**  
**MM: consider what ive said**  
**mysticalMoonchild ceased pestering artisticKarma**

That Dawn, though. She was pretty sweet, but wow did she have a dark side! Or at least one that wasn't quite so nice.

But yeah, maybe she should contact Noah to play Sburb. It was now or never, really. Well maybe not "now"... Maybe yes "now"... AUGH! Point is, it was critical to play the game.

**artisticKarma [AK] began pestering snarkasticCynic [SC]**  
**AK: Noah.**  
**SC: What? I'm TRYING to enjoy my morning.**  
**AK: Fuck that, Dawn says we need to play Sburb.**  
**SC: Didn't you have something earlier about not listening to Dawn about playing Sburb?**  
**AK: Yeah, well, change of plans. We need to play it, apparently.**  
**SC: All right then. Let's do this.**

* * *

HEY. TA.

what do you want kk?

HAVE YOU SEEN THESE HALF-BAKED BLITHERING SHITSNIFFERS OF KIDS LALONDE FOUND?

no, can't 2ay ii have. and you know tho2e half joke2 are really gettiing old iif you're talking two me.

WHAT? NO, THAT WAS AN ACCIDENT. ANYWAY, TRY TROLL ONE OF THEM OR SOMETHING.

why would ii want two do that? ii hone2tly don't care what happens at thii2 poiint.

BECAUSE I FIGURE SHE MUST HAVE SEEN THEM FOR A REASON. SEERS DON'T JUST RANDOMLY FIND AN ASSHOLE AND GO "OH LOOK, THEY MUST BE IMPORTANT". NO, IT'S A VERY COMPLICATED PROCESS AND IT'S FOR A REASON. DON'T YOU WANT TO BE INTEGRAL FOR ANOTHER SESSION?

two be honest ii don't know iif ii want to be iinvolved iin another 2e22iion, but whatever. iif you want me two troll them, at lea2t giive me theiir handle2 for fuck'2 2ake.

WELL, ONE OF THEM IS-

Hey guys, what's going on?

look what you've done, kk. your 2houtiing got vk to come over. great goiing.

WELL IT'S NOT LIKE I REALLY CARE. SHE ALREADY KNOWS ABOUT IT, RIGHT AG?

It sure would 8e a lot easier if you told me what exactly you were asking me if I knew.

YOU KNOW, THOSE IGNORANT FUCKWADS WHO HAVE NO ASSLICKING CLUE WHAT THEY'RE DOING. THE ONES WHO ENDED THE WORLD.

Well, in their defense, the world hasn't ended yet.

ANOTHER ITERATION OF IT DID.

look kk can you ju2t tell me theiir handle2 2o ii can leave?

FINE. I'LL JUST WRITE IT DOWN. HERE.

thank2. can we go now?

* * *

**_I hope the insults were colorful enough... :P_**

**_And I realized I had too much fun with the end part. In fact, I had to cut it short so it didn't end up LONGER than the main part, which is focused on the TD teens. Those of you who've read Homestuck, know that I just gave up and used the quirks because why not? You all would've known who it was anyway. XD_**

**_Sorry for the long wait! I've had a busy couple of weeks, and my birthday's on Tuesday, so... Cleaning up for parties. Yeah._**


	9. Gwen: Open Sburb

It was probably for the best that her brother was out shopping with her mom. The disk installation was easy, and the set-up just as fast. But as soon as she logged on to Pesterchum to ask Noah what to do now...

**twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling artisticKarma [AK]**  
**TA: who the fuck are you**  
**AK: You're the one who contacted me! Aren't you supposed to know?**  
**TA: per2onally ii don't know enough about you to know who you are.**  
**AK: Okay, you guys are seriously starting to piss me off.**  
**AK: Ignoring the obvious "why do you know me, stalker?" argument, how do you have another copy of the software if we're the only ones who have it?**  
**TA: what 2oftware?**  
**AK: The one you're using right now.**  
**TA: trolliian?**  
**TA: ii don't thiink iignorant human 2cum can have iit.**  
**TA: don't you have that boriing program called pe2terchum or whatever?**  
**AK: Yeah. Something like that. Why do you have such convoluted sounding software?**  
**TA: why would anyone want to u2e a program that 2ound2 a2 2tupiid a2 2omethiing called "pe2terchum"?**  
**AK: ...I don't actually have an answer for that.**  
**AK: Look, do you have anything important to say, or are you just wasting time?**  
**TA: ii'm ju2t wa2tiing tiime ii thiink.**  
**artisticKarma slammed her head on her computer and broke it.**  
**TA: hehehehehe**

Well, there goes the computer. It's probably a good thing that she had Pesterchum on her phone too.

"Do you want me to put everything in a convenient place, or scatter them all over the house?" Noah smirked, bringing her back to reality.

"It'd sure be nice if you could have them all in one place," Gwen replied. "Seriously though don't put anything on the roof."

"Why not? It'll be amusing for a while."

"Exactly. For a while. What if my life depends on it? Not so funny anymore, right?"

"Fine. Where should I put them?"

"How about in the living room? It's pretty big and central. Ish."

Three loud thuds resonated throughout the house, and a punched captchalogue card popped into existence in front of Gwen's face. As it drifted into her hands, she stared at it incomprehensibly.

"What's this?" she asked curiously.

"It's a captchalogue card. Some moduses use them, but mine doesn't. Judging by your reaction, yours doesn't either."

"Wait, how much of the manual did you read?"

"...all of it, why?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. Yes I am."

She stared at the captchalogue card and frowned. "Okay, so what do I do with this again?"

"You put it into that slot on the Totem Lathe, and then open up the Cruxtruder to get some cruxite. Stick the cruxite into the clamp and it should activate. Weren't you paying attention when Cody was entering the game?"

"I was distracted by the fact that there was a meteor headed for his house."

"That's what they all say."

Rolling her eyes, she ignored him and stuck the card into the slot. She then realized she probably needed a cruxite dowel, and strode up to the Cruxtruder.

"Uh... A little help?" she asked, pointing to the securely fastened lid. In response, her mother's best vase hurtled towards the device. Her eyes widened.

"Oh crap."

The vase shattered, but the Cruxtruder opened, spitting out a glob of deep crimson energy.

"So what are you going to prototype?" Noah asked. "Deceased family member? Living family member? Friend? Book?"

"Why would I prototype a book?" Gwen inquired curiously.

"Didn't you ever want to meet your favorite characters in person?"

"No."

"Well, what else can you prototype? A pet?"

Gwen smiled and walked out of the room. "Hold that thought."

* * *

She came back holding a pair of lizards.

"Noah, meet Angus and Vampyra. They're lizards, by the way."

"That much is obvious."

"Yeah, it kind of is. Anyway, into the sprite they go." She lobbed the reptiles in one after the other, spontaneously creating Angpyrasprite. For some reason, it had two heads.

"Hi!" it squeaked.

Gwen grinned. "So. Cool."

"Uh, hello! Clock! Is! Ticking! Meteor! Is! Coming!" Noah yelled, frustrated.

"Oh right," she agreed. "So I get a dowel, and stick it in the clamp... then stick the totem onto the alchemizer platform..."

A small red book appeared. She blinked.

"What the-" Picking it up and flipping through it, she blushed almost as red as the book.

"Well?" Noah asked.

"N-nothing!" she stammered, slamming the book shut. "It's nothing like, I dunno, a secret diary that I don't want anyone to read or anything like that."

"Pull yourself together and do something with it!" he snapped. "You have about 1 minute to live!"

"Okay, okay!"

She looked at the small volume for a while, then started to scribble a new entry into it.

_Dear diary, today I helped make a meteor crash into my house. On accident, of course._

As she wrote, she stopped feeling so self-conscious despite the fact that Noah was surely watching and wondering what she was writing. She finished up the last few words and the book started glowing inexplicably.

Just as well, too, since a meteor that looked even bigger than the one that hit Cody's house was nearing impact.

Closing her eyes, the burning image of a flaming rock was imprinted on her eyelids.

* * *

Well. It looks like she's entered the game.

THAT MUCH WAS OBVIOUS. REMINDS ME, WHAT'D YOU THINK OF HER, TA?

eh. 2he wa2 all riight, ii gue22.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? I CAN'T TELL WHEN YOU'RE BEING VAGUE.

ii made the human giirl 2lam her head iinto her computer and iit broke.

Hahahahahahahaha! That's actually kind of funny, Captor.

thank you, thank you. ii appreciiate the applau2e.

IT'S NOT SO FUNNY. I TROLLED THE OTHER ONE EVEN HARDER.

From what I heard, you just confused him with alien terminology. That doesn't constitute as trolling.

IT IS, UNDER CERTAIN DEFINITIONS OF THE TERM TROLLING. LIKE THIS THING I FOUND ON HUMAN URBAN DICTIONARY. DO YOU WANT TO SEE?

Keep dreaming, Vantas.

* * *

_**Look it's been a week and I updated! Woot woot.**_

_**Captor? Vantas? TA? Who even are these people? ...you think I'm just going to go straight out and tell you? lol**_


	10. Gwen: Be Noah

Gwen cannot be Noah because she is too busy being herself. Besides, Noah fell asleep. Let this be a lesson to you: Reader, you can't tell them what to do.

When she opened her eyes again, everything was eerily still. She glanced at the clock, which appeared to have come to an abrupt halt. As she picked up her phone to try and contact Noah again, her Pesterchum pinged with a few new messages. Seeing that they were from the same person who had irritated her earlier, she decided to ignore it.

The phone started ringing. "What the heck?" Gwen asked incredulously. Wondering who would even be able to find her number, let alone contact her in a different dimension, she answered.

"Hello?"

"You have reached the Fahlenbock residence. Say something before I hang up."

"Well, I was GOING to ask you if you wanted to go to the movies later, but I guess not."

She sighed. "Courtney, it's a little hard to go hang out when meteors are ravaging the Earth. Also, I thought you hated me."

"Well... Don't you think we should forgive and be friends?"

"You're never this cheerful. What's going on?"

"Uh... Well..."

"C'mon, spit it out."

"Promise not to laugh?"

"As long as it isn't funny."

"...Scott broke up with me."

Gwen immediately burst out laughing. She could almost see Courtney turning purple with rage right about now. "I told you it was going to happen and you didn't listen!" she wheezed between chuckles.

"It's not funny! I thought I could rely on you for sympathy, but I guess not. You're just as big as a jerk as you were when you dated-"

Immediately sobering up, Gwen interrupted her. "Nope. Not going to talk about that."

"Why not? I'll talk about whatever I damn well please!"

"This is why you shouldn't be hanging around Scott! You started going to bars, cussing, cutting class to hang around his dirty redneck family... They're a bad influence!"

"You did the same things when you dated Duncan! Besides, you never told me that he was a bad influence."

"I did! I told you every day before school, but you'd either kind of brush me off, or be stoned as hell and laugh at everything."

Courtney sniffed. "I would never be so undignified so as to do such a thing!"

"Maybe you were. You spent the entire last semester like that."

She paused. "I did?"

"Yes! You did! Let's face it Courtney, him dumping you was probably the best thing that's happened to you for a while."

"Hmph." She didn't say it with such a snobbish tone though, so Gwen felt like there was a little hope.

"Think about it," she said, and hung up.

Getting up, she began to wander around her house. It was pretty small - 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, so someone always ended up on the couch - but quite cozy. Kindergarten crayon cartoons hung on the same walls as masterful works of art. The TV hardly worked, though, since Mom hardly pulled in enough money to stay afloat as is. Sure, Gwen could commission art, and she did for a while. But then people started asking for... Naughty things, to say the least. Point is, it made her close commissions. Let's move on, shall we?

As of the current moment, she was searching for Angpyrasprite. The dual-headed floating lizard now shared the traits of both animals, making it two times more likely that they'd fight. It was probably a priority to find them before any permanent damage was done. Luckily, she found it (them?) sleeping on her bed, tuckered out by all the commotion. Smiling, Gwen had to resist the urge to pet it.

Catching a glimpse of a grayish-looking something outside her window, she headed outside.

She beheld a vast, fertile plain of magenta soil. Hot pink, biped turtles dotted the landscape, and a faint raspberry smell wafted up from the ground. It was almost utterly silent, as opposed to Cody's planet, which had a haunting refrain playing softly in the background (assuming that wasn't actually Sburb's default music). Despite the heavy silver mist that enshrouded the planet, the atmosphere was cool and dry.

None of this was quite as striking as the slate statues that stuck up in seemingly random places in the soil, however. They ranged from tall to small, detailed to plain, and even in the shapes of people.

At a loss for what to do, she stood there in awe. All the colors she thought she hated, and yet it looked so nice together. A turtle came over and gasped in shock.

"What? What?" Gwen asked, snapping out of her reverie. "Is something wrong?"

The turtle stayed in the same place a while, eyes wide and mouth agape.

"Um... Earth to turtle?" she asked worriedly, snapping her fingers under where its nose would have been. "Are you okay?"

It came out of its stupor, and shouted gleefully, "THE KNIGHT HAS ARRIVED!"

"What? Me? I don't know..." Hopelessly trying to reason, she tried to escape notice. It was too late for that, though. The turtle's cry had already alerted all the reptiles in the surrounding area (with the possible exception of Angpyrasprite), and those who hadn't heard soon would.

Almost instantaneously, a swarm of turtles congregated around Gwen. "The KNIGHT?" "How lucky of us!" "I want her autograph!"

"No, please, I'm not that important..." Gwen tried to push them away. "I'm just your ordinary girl, trying to play a game."

The crowd parted, and a turtle with a fake looking beard walked up. "Oh, but you aren't," it chuckled in an amazingly nasal voice.

"...is that my brother's fake beard that he used for Halloween?"

"Possibly."

"He found it on the ground!" piped up a turtle in the back.

"Yes, well..." The bearded turtle rubbed the back of its neck. (If it could even do that, arm-lacking as it was.)

"So where am I? Who are you?" Gwen asked, hoping to steer the conversation back on topic.

"Ah, yes," said the bearded turtle. It looked her straight in the eye and said, "Welcome to the Land of Sculptures and Passion, Knight of Heart."

This epic moment was ruined by Gwen's phone chiming. Cody was online.

* * *

_**For some reason I was tired as all hell last night and I felt bad for making you guys wait 2 weeks for a chapter. Then I thought it would be a good idea to write another one. No, it was not. Never expect this again. But I know you guys wanted to find out about Gwen's planet. Voíla. LOSAP. Have fun with it.**_

_**(If I posted some concept art, would anyone at all be interested? Just wondering.)**_


	11. Gwen: Answer

**CC: gwen? are you still alive?**  
**AK: Goddammit, Cody! I'm being talked to by a bunch of turtles!**  
**CC: a bunch of... what?**  
**AK: Turtles!**  
**CC: o... kay?**  
**CC: i found a bunch of imps and stuff in my house, should i be worried?**  
**AK: What imps?**  
**CC: they're like some game-generated enemy, I think. they drop grist.**  
**AK: Are they anything I should be worried about right now?**  
**CC: if you haven't seen them yet, i don't think you should be...**  
**CC: ...**  
**AK: ...What?**  
**AK: Are you waiting for something?**  
**CC: yeah, could you help me?**  
**CC: drop a refrigerator on it or something?**  
**AK: Well, what'd you do last time? If you encountered one, of course?**  
**CC: i attacked one with my keyboard, but that didn't do much.**  
**CC: but then i mashed the keys, and it kind of screeched and died?**  
**AK: Hmm...**  
**AK: What if you rigged up your keyboard to some speakers and mashed the keys?**  
**CC: oh!**  
**CC: i hadn't thought of that, actually...**  
**AK: All right then, have fun. I need to deal with these turtles.**  
**artisticKarma ceased pestering casanovicCandy**  
**CC: ...i still don't... turtles?**

Flipping her phone shut, Gwen turned back to the bearded turtle. "Alright, could I get an hour of exposition to go, please?"

"What?"

She sighed. "Nevermind."

"You are in the Land of Sculptures and Passion, my dear. What would you like to know?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued. "Nevermind, there's some obligatory information you absolutely MUST know about first."

Yippee, Gwen thought.

"Now tell me this, does the land look alive to you?"

"Uh... No?"

"Precisely! The land still slumbers, and someone must awaken it." He turned to her, with a mad look in his eye. "That's where you come in."

"Oh, no. Please don't drag me into this."

"Hero of Heart, this is your duty! You must defeat the one holding our planet in endless rest... Eros!"

"Okay, that sounded really cool, but I don't get it."

"You must awaken the land! Defeat the Denizen, with the aid of your companions!"

"Like... Cody, Noah, and Dawn?"

"Not only the Mage, Seer, and Rogue, however. I also mean the Sylph and Page, they who shall unite your session and save you from a doom greater than you could ever imagine!"

In her head, Gwen was already trying to come up with the easiest way to make this irritating reptile stop spitting nonsense. After eliminating killing, she decided to listen again.

"And only then will your quest truly begin," the crazed turtle continued, "for you must realize the true purpose of that which is broken! Heal our world, for the good of yours!"

"For the good of... My... World?" Gwen managed to ask at a brief pause.

"Yes! YES!" He pointed up at her. "Your world! The place you live in! Your home, what makes you YOU!"

"But... Earth was destroyed!" she protested, still trying to make heads or tails of the discussion.

He shook his head adamantly. "Not THAT world, the one on the inside!"

"Okay... Look, I'm just gonna go now." Gwen turned around and walked off into the fuchsia wasteland.

"Wait! Don't go!" the turtle cried frantically, but she was long gone.

As she trudged through the heavy fog, she glanced up every so often at the sky above and sighed. Cody's planet, pale beige and dotted with softly glowing lights, was nothing more than a blur through the endless, thick miasma of her planet. Keeping her attention on the bright celestial bodies overhead, she didn't notice the stone until she tripped right over it.

Falling flat on her face with a muffled shout, Gwen was treated to a mouthful of dirt. And that was, indeed, all it was - pink, raspberry-scented, dirt. It didn't even taste any different. Spitting it out and coughing, she got back up again to keep walking. After which she immediately stopped as she saw exactly what she had tripped on.

It was him. Ex-boyfriend, former light of her life. Trent.

Though, not exactly. First off, it was a statue - formed from the waist up, leaving the rest of the bottom a jumble of uncarved marble, polished smooth. This seemed almost pointless to her, given that none of the statue itself was polished too. For another thing, it was ten feet tall. Definitely taller than the real deal. His expression, frozen in an expression of glee, was like no other that she had ever seen on him.

Turning around, she muttered a quick "Goodbye forever" and intended to leave again, but once again stopped as she looked at the rest of the sculptures.

Some of them were simply deformed piles of stone that may have once been faces or figures, but now only bore the faintest of resemblances to a human shape. Others, towering over her in a regal splendor, were modeled after people she knew - Duncan, Courtney, Scott... Their faces, forever stuck in expressions ranging from joy to anger to sadness, were chiseled carefully, each minute imperfection in perfect balance with the rest of the piece.

"What..." For a while she could do nothing but stare. Who would take the time to make these? Why were they all figures from her own life, and these figures specifically?

Perhaps this was just another mystery her land had to offer...

* * *

"Gwen?" Cody tapped at his phone furiously. "Gwen, come back! I really need some upgrades or something!" Pressing "refresh" over and over did next to nothing. The signal was still stable, but it seemed that his server player wasn't online. In his frustration, he almost threw the device across the room, but settled for captchaloguing it instead.

Peering outside his bedroom window, he observed the scene below. The ever-shifting, pearly white sugar sand of the desert would almost be beautiful, if it weren't for the swarms of imps milling about below. Those dark, slimy things were everywhere at this point!

Turning on the walkie-talkie he had found in the basement, Cody spoke into it, "Sierrasprite, do you read me? What is your position?"

His sprite was slow to respond, and did so irritably. "You don't have to be so serious about this! It's just defeating some monsters for loot!"

"It's... Kind of fun to be serious with this, actually," he admitted. "But Gwen still isn't online... Do you think something happened?"

"What I think? I think you have a crush on her! You're ruffling my feathers! Literally!"

"I do NOT! I'm just wondering if she could get me any upgrades or something, because this speaker system is weird!"

"Then I'm not going to tell you anything that could help you find Gwen!"

"...wait, if I ask you something, you'll be forced to reply in complete honesty due to your being a sprite."

"Dammit, he found out my secret," Sierrasprite said under her breath.

"Did you hook up the outside speakers?" Cody asked, hedging his keyboard.

"Yeah. Should I find some magical sprite earplugs?"

"That'd be useful. Ready?" After a quick pause, Cody hit a discordant series of keys.

The resulting sound wave almost knocked him off his feet. Echoing around the house, the cacophony - low notes, high notes, even a duck quack - shattered kitchenware and caused portraits to fall off the walls. Most importantly, all the imps in the vinicity, both inside and out of the house, keeled over and dissolved into piles of Grist.

"Jackpot!" Cody crowed, running outside to collect the loot. He still didn't know what it was for, but anyone would find killing a horde of monsters in one shot satisfying, regardless of the reward.

This wasn't so bad, he decided. If this was all Sburb was - killing tons of imps with sound blasts - it wasn't all that hard. In fact, he could get used to it.

Needless to say, the two giant ogres lumbering towards his house from the boundless horizon probably had some very different ideas on the matter.

* * *

_**MERRY CHRISTMAS, YOU GET AN UPDATE. CONCEPT ART: STILL TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED.**_

_**(Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy whatever holiday you celebrate in December.)**_


	12. Cody: Get attacked

What do you mean, "attacked"? It doesn't seem like there's any huge threat as of right now. Sure, there are the imps, but since he's managed to fight them off pretty easily, there is no way there'll be anything bigger!

_BOOM. BOOM. BOOM._

Startled, Cody almost dropped his keyboard. Hastily scrambling to pick it up again, he worriedly asked, "What was that?"

Sierrasprite looked up from the wiring she was trying to plug together. "...bigger, more difficult enemies?"

"Actually, I'm not really sure why I asked." Setting his instrument aside, he strode to the bedroom window and peered outside into the star-speckled, synthetic night.

Two huge, black, squishy, winged humanoid creatures slowly approached on the horizon. Even from this distance, every slow, heavy step either one took resonated as it shook the ground. Cody tore his eyes from their astounding girth and looked at the monsters' stubby legs. Groups of salamanders had scattered, dashing back and forth and yelling. The ogres took no notice of them, however, their focus on their destination clearly shown. Unfortunately, said destination was probably Cody's house, given the direction they were headed in.

"Do you know if giant eardrums are as weak as imp eardrums?" he asked, unable to look away from the enormous ogres drawing near.

"Probably not?" Sierrasprite shrugged, the movement causing her wings to precariously tilt into a crooked position. Righting them, she added, "They're stronger enemies, right?"

"Right." Cody groaned, finally turning away from the window. "Time to set up some bigger speakers, I guess."

* * *

_But that's boring to watch, so you are now the other guy._

An Indian teen sat in his room. A large closet, really. Having 8 siblings to share a house with kind of forces the family to preserve space. The little room granted to said teen was filled wall-to-wall with various items of interest. Multiple electronic gaming systems whirred idly as dull screens flickered. Messily arranged pillows sat side-by-side with neatly stacked academic books. In the center of it all, a small mattress that barely fit in the space provided remained unmade. The owner of the room, a young man with a wide forehead and a trademark sarcastic attitude, lay down in the middle of the mattress and squinted to read a book.

Despite the poor lighting, he didn't seem to be having any problems with reading the book, seeming thoroughly engrossed in the thin volume. In fact, if you didn't consider the meteors raining down on the planet to be a concern, you could say the scene was almost peaceful. Just a boy surrounded by the things he enjoyed, nothing special about that.

His computer buzzed with a new message, as did four or five other devices in the room. Picking one up at random, Noah logged into Pesterchum to answer.

**casanovicCandy began pestering snarkasticCynic**

**CC: hey, do you have any advice on how to set up giant speakers?  
****SC: Shouldn't this be something you should be asking Gwen? She IS your server player.  
****CC: oops! sorry, i must've accidentally pestered the wrong person…  
****CC: but then again, i think she's busy with something.  
****CC: last time i contacted her, she was being talked to by a bunch of turtles.  
****SC: Turtles?  
****CC: yeah, turtles.  
****CC: i don't get it either.  
****CC: seriously, though, do you have any advice on setting up speakers?  
****SC: Yes, I do, but why would you need speakers?  
****CC: apparently large discordant sound waves kill imps.  
****SC: Technically, imps can't be killed. They can only be disintegrated into grist, being a game construct.  
****CC: yeah whatever i don't really care.  
****CC: the point is that i really need that advice!  
****CC: giant ogres are coming towards my house and my strife specibus is set to instrumentkind!  
****SC: How did you get that far in the game in only the past 10 hours or so? I thought you needed to at least advance to the first few levels on your echeladder before higher-level enemies such as ogres attack you?  
****CC: well i've been mowing down imps left and right with the system i currently have set up…  
****CC: but i think i'd need something bigger to take down these things?  
****CC: i'm on like the 12****th**** rung or something right now for the echeladder…  
****SC: That's pretty good, actually.  
****CC: thanks.  
****SC: So what have you been doing to disintegrate the imps?  
****CC: look, is this relevant?  
****SC: It is, trust me.  
****CC: i just play a bunch of random notes on my keyboard, really.  
****CC: it sounds terrible and i think it explodes their eardrums or something.  
****SC: I think you need to actually play something that sounds like music.  
****CC: what? really?  
****SC: Yes, really.  
****CC: but that wouldn't kill them, would it?  
****SC: As a matter of fact, it might. According to the manual…  
****CC: please, no manual!  
****CC: i'll try that.**

* * *

_You realize that this POV switch was a complete and utter waste of time and stop being the other guy._

Cody dashed around the room, setting up things here and there. Sierrasprite watched curiously as he tried to attach multiple wires and ending up in a tangled mess of cable.

"What are you doing?" she asked, plugging together a few cords herself.

"Noah says to try and play something that resembles actual music, and it might help," he answered, trying to wrestle himself free from the cables. "A little help?"

Sierrasprite frowned. "That wouldn't help, would it?" Everything was briefly enveloped in a soft blue light, and the entire room set itself right. Cody stood up.

"Maybe it will, but there's only one way to find out."

Picking up his keyboard, Cody pulled out some sheet music. Staring at it with a forceful intensity, he hit some notes as a test. A few simple notes sounded from the instrument.

"What song is this?" Sierrasprite peered over at the sheet music. "'Elevatorstuck'? What the heck is that?"

"I don't know, I found it on the Internet somewhere." Cody shrugged. "It's not that important."

"I can help!" She pulled out a glowing blue flute. "Here, I'll play the flute part."

"…You can play the flute?" he asked, equal parts impressed and confused. "I never knew that."

"I guess I didn't either, but my mom gave me lessons once." Standing a microphone next to the flute, she played the first measures experimentally. "Let's start!"

_**( /watch?v=V0RJPFOpBlg )**_

At the conclusion of the tune, they looked outside to see the ogres keeling over in pain. As they watched, the monsters slowly dissolved into huge piles of grist.

"Huh. That was pretty cool," Cody said.

Going outside to collect the grist, he was met by a huge crowd of salamanders. When they caught sight of him, the babbling and bubbles came to an abrupt halt. One of them said loudly, "THE MAGE HAS SAVED US ALL!"

Hundreds of amphibians blinked in silent unison.

Then the cheers started. A loud combination of gurgling, bubbly noises and yelling, its volume was nearly enough to top the speakers' music from the previous few minutes.

Cody found himself lifted onto the tops of the salamanders' shoulders, crowd-surfing the group. When he finally was lowered down reverently, he landed face-first on the ground with a mouthful of spoiled sugar.

Except the sugar, which had tasted horrible before, seemed a little different. Sure, it was still vile and unfit for consumption, but it tasted a little sweeter, the poison not as evident. Was it possible that defeating the various enemies purified the planet?

He sat for a while, but then realized the sugar was still disgusting. The salamanders watched him spit it out, confused.

"Sir, why did you do that?" one asks, and Cody grins at him.

"I think I know how to make this desert taste better."

* * *

Noah glared at his book. The thin volume, a history of Skaia, was definitely fascinating. The fact that it was also his fetch modus was pretty cool too, since every time he captchalogued or put down an item, the story rearranged itself to accommodate the new words. In fact, he had spent the past few hours picking up various items to find out more about the game. At some point, one of his older sisters had come in to give him some dinner – a bowl of mashed pumpkin. He was pretty sure this wasn't actually what they were having for dinner, and someone just wanted to give him a hard time, but he had taken it anyway.

On a whim, he decided to try captchalogue it. Suddenly, the entire book expanded, filled with nonsense ramblings. Flipping to a random page, he tried to make heads or tails of the story.

"'Banana spoiled all the triangular endings where cats frolicked merrily'," he stated out loud. "Okay, this is complete bullshit."

Using the index to find the page with the word "pumpkin", he read the sentence off of the page.

"What pumpkin?"

Immediately, the bowl of mashed pumpkin materialized out of the book. At the same time, the book shrunk back to the thin volume and the sentences fixed themselves. Frowning, Noah eyed the bowl warily. So innocuous, but it seemed to wreak havoc on his sylladex. Weird.

**mysticMoonchild [MM] began pestering snarkasticCynic [SC]**

**MM: would you like to play sburb anytime soon  
****SC: Not at the present moment, no. It seems a little dangerous, and don't you think we're doing this all too fast?  
****MM: if you think so  
****MM: it may be wise to play the game soon though  
****MM: before the meteors keep hitting the earth and inevitably destroys it  
****SC: I'll just let you know when I think it's a good time to play it, okay?  
****MM: alright  
****MM: but if i believe we must then we are going to  
****MM: no questions asked  
****SC: Okay then.**

* * *

_Uggggggggh. They aren't DOING anything! They're progressing too slowly! At this rate, their planet will be destroyed before everyone's in the game!_

_relax, vk. ii bet they won't._

_Oh? And what makes you say that, Mr. I'm-A-Genius-All-Of-A-Sudden?_

_you're not the doom player. what do you know about what wiill or won't happen?_

_More than you! ! ! ! ! ! ! !_

_yeah, ii doubt that._

_H3Y GUYS, WH4T'S GO1NG ON?_

_Great. Now you got HER over here._

_WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP COMING OVER TO INTERRUPT OUR CONVERSATION?_

_W3LL 1T S33M3D 1NT3R3ST1NG TO M3_

_WH4T 4R3 W3 T4LK1NG 4BOUT?_

_THE MAJESTIC SEER OF LIGHT, QUOTE-UNQUOTE, FOUND A NEW SESSION OF HUMAN KIDS TRYING TO PLAY SGRUB._

_2burb._

_WHATEVER. POINT IS, THESE BULGELICKING FUCKWADS ARE SO IGNORANT THAT I PRACTICALLY CAN FEEL MY BRAIN DEGENERATING INTO AN ENORMOUS PILE OF FRESH, STEAMING HOOFBEAST DUNG WATCHING THEM._

_SO W3'R3 GO1NG TO M3DDL3 W1TH TH3M?_

_Oh no you don't, Pyrope! You aren't going to mess with yet another session, not on my watch!_

_WHY NOT? 1T'LL BE FUN!_

_tz, 2he doe2n't mean that 2he doe2n't want u2 to meddle. 2he ju2t doe2n't want you to meddle becau2e 2he want2 to be the big old hero iin charge. ii2n't that riight?_

_Shut UP C8ptor! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Why does everyone insist on misinterpreting my actions so I seem like a v8llain?_

_becau2e you are._

_UGH! F8CK Y8U GUYS TOO! I never thought you all would turn on me like this! That's it, I'm leaving!_

_…SO, DO YOU TH1NK 1 COULD G3T ON3 OF TH31R CHUMH4NDL3S?_

_YEAH, SURE. HERE, KNOCK YOURSELF OUT._

* * *

**gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling snarkasticCynic [SC]**

**GC: SO, YOU'R3 ON3 OF THE HUM4NS WHO'R3 TRY1NG TO PL4Y SBURB?  
****SC: Seeing as you're not playing, I don't see how this involves you.  
****GC: 4ND YOU'R3 A SM4RT 4SS TOO  
****GC: GOOD TO KNOW  
****SC: Why are you even bothering me?  
****GC: B3C4US3 1 THOUGHT 1 COULD HELP YOU W1TH THE G4M3!  
****GC: 1'V3 PL4Y3D IT B3FOR3 4ND WON  
****GC: DON'T YOU TH1NK 1T'LL B3 GOOD TO H4V3 3XP3RT 4DV1C3 ON YOUR S1D3? ›:]  
****SC: All right, what's the catch?  
****GC: C4TCH?  
****GC: WH4T 4R3 YOU T4LK1NG 4BOUT TH3R3 1S NO C4TCH  
****SC: Don't you think I can tell when someone wants something from me?  
****SC: 16 years of siblings getting you to do their homework kind of helps with that.  
****GC: F1N3  
****GC: TH3 TH1NG 1S TH3R3'S TH1S ON3 OTH3R TROLL  
****GC: SH3 4LW4YS W4NTS TO B3 4 P4RT OF WH4T'S GO1NG ON  
****GC: L4ST T1M3 W3 H3LP3D W1TH 4 S3SS1ON W3 34CH K1ND OF CL41M3D A PL4Y3R TO GU1D3  
****GC: 4ND TH1S T1M3 1 TH1NK SH3 W4NTS TO GU1D3 4LL OF YOU GUYS SO NON3 OF TH3 R3ST OF US CAN H3LP 4ND B3 4CTU4LLY H3LPFUL  
****SC: And you want to "claim" me so this other "troll" doesn't get to me first? Just as a show of one-upmanship?  
****GC: PR3TTY MUCH  
****SC: I'll think about your offer. Don't expect me to take it up anytime soon.  
****GC: Y4Y!  
****SC: But since I guess you can see what I'm doing, do you know when I should open Sburb and play it?  
****GC: HMM…  
****GC: 1'LL H4V3 TO LOOK 1NTO TH4T  
****GC: US1NG MY 4W3SOM3 POW3RS!  
****SC: You have awesome powers?  
****GC: Y34H! 1T'S 4LL P4RT OF TH3 G4M3  
****SC: I'd say I'm looking forward to getting these awesome powers, but I don't really care right now.  
****GC: 4H YOU'R3 ON3 OF THOS3 4P4TH3T1C TYP3S  
****GC: W3'LL H4V3 TO DO SOM3TH1NG 4BOUT TH4T  
****GC: OOPS  
****GC: 1 H4V3 TO L34V3, MY FR13NDS 4R3 C4LL1NG FOR M3  
****GC: C4N'T L34V3 TH3M 4LON3 FOR 5 HUM4N S3CONDS  
****GC: UNT1L N3XT T1M3**

**gallowsCalibrator ceased trolling snarkasticCynic**

* * *

_**THERE, LONGER CHAPTER. BE PROUD OF ME.**_


End file.
